Eagles File Trademark for Phrase ‘Philly Special’

The team filed to trademark the phrase on Thursday, mostly for use on apparel. The filing recently appeared on the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office website.

The Eagles aren’t the first in line for the phrase. They’re actually the eighth group to file for it. People in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida, as well as the Pennsylvania-based brewing company Yuengling, filed for rights to own the phrase, which refers to the now-famous Super Bowl LII trick play.

Trademark lawyer Josh Gerben of Gerben Law in Washington, D.C., says the Eagles will have to wait about four months for the USPTO to sort out the filings and then roughly eight months after that to see whether the trademark will be awarded to the team. While the other trademark filings are for intent to use “Philly Special,” the Eagles say they’ve already used it, referring to a shirt with their logo that was sold by Fanatics in the days after their Super Bowl win.

Gerben says one question the trademark office will have is “whether the play’s name belongs to the Eagles or deserves to be in the public domain.”